“Ah! who would not have been married in England!”

“My sweet mistress,” said Jehan, whose ecstasy was sooner over, “you are married to me in France, where things are managed still better, for I am a man who would give a thousand lives for you if he had them.”

Poor Bertha gave a shriek so sharp that it pierced the walls, and leapt out of bed like a mountebank of the plains of Egypt would have done.  She fell upon her knees before her Prie-Dieu, joined her hands, and wept more pearls than ever Mary Magdalene wore.

“Ah!  I am dead” she cried; “I am deceived by a devil who has taken the face of an angel.  I am lost; I am the mother for certain of a beautiful child, without being more guilty than you, Madame the Virgin.  Implore the pardon of God for me, if I have not that of men upon earth; or let me die, so that I may not blush before my lord and master.”

Hearing that she said nothing against him, Jehan rose, quite aghast to see Bertha take this charming dance for two so to heart.  But the moment she heard her Gabriel moving she sprang quickly to her feet, regarded him with a tearful face, and her eye illumined with a holy anger, which made her more lovely to look upon, exclaimed—­

“If you advance a single step towards me, I will make one towards death!”

And she took her stiletto in her hand.

So heartrending was the tragic spectacle of her grief that Jehan answered her—­

“It is not for thee but for me to die, my dear, beautiful mistress, more dearly loved than will ever woman be again upon this earth.”

“If you had truly loved me you would not have killed me as you have, for I will die sooner than be reproached by my husband.”

“Will you die?” said he.

“Assuredly,” said she.

“Now, if I am here pierced with a thousand blows, you will have your husband’s pardon, to whom you will say that if your innocence was surprised, you have avenged his honour by killing the man who had deceived you; and it will be the greatest happiness that could ever befall me to die for you, the moment you refuse to live for me.”

Hearing this tender discourse spoken with tears, Bertha dropped the dagger; Jehan sprang upon it, and thrust it into his breast, saying—­

“Such happiness can be paid for but with death.”

And fell stiff and stark.

Bertha, terrified, called aloud for her maid.  The servant came, and terribly alarmed to see a wounded man in Madame’s chamber, and Madame holding him up, crying and saying, “What have you done, my love?” because she believed he was dead, and remembered her vanished joys, and thought how beautiful Jehan must be, since everyone, even Imbert, believed him to be a girl.  In her sorrow she confessed all to her maid, sobbing and crying out, “that it was quite enough to have upon her mind the life of a child without having the death of a man as well.”  Hearing this the poor lover tried to open his eyes, and only succeeded in showing a little bit of the white of them.